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peer-reviewed research article

Income value of private amenities assessed in California oak woodlands

authors

Jose L. Oviedo, Institute of Public Goods and Policies, Spanish National Research Council
Lynn Huntsinger, UC Berkeley
Pablo Campos, Institute of Public Goods and Policies, Spanish National Research Council
Alejandro Caparrós, Institute of Public Goods and Policies, Spanish National Research Council

publication information

California Agriculture 66(3):91-96. DOI: 10.3733/ca.v066n03p91. July-September 2012.

NALT Keywords

agricultural land, Farming Systems, forest economics, Forest Products, natural resource management, Natural Resources

abstract

Landowners in California were surveyed using a contingent valuation technique to assess its usefulness in estimating the monetary income value of private amenities from their oak woodland properties. Private amenities — such as recreation, scenic beauty and a rural lifestyle — are considered an important influence on rangeland owners, but few studies have attempted to place a monetary income value on them. Landowners were asked to estimate the maximum amount of earnings that they were willing to forgo before selling their property to invest in more commercially profitable, nonagrarian assets, and the proportion of the land price that they thought was explained by private amenities from their land. On average, landowners were willing to pay $54 per acre annually for private amenities, and they attributed 57% of the land price to them. Regression analysis revealed that the landowners’ willingness to pay per acre decreased as property size increased. This approach sheds light on how landowners value the benefits of land owner-ship and offers insights for outreach and policy development for privately owned oak woodlands.

author affiliations

J.L. Oviedo is Associate Research Professor, Institute of Public Goods and Policies, Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain; L. Huntsinger is Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley; P. Campos is Research Professor, Institute of Public Goods and Policies, Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain. A. Caparrós is Associate Research Professor, Institute of Public Goods and Policies, Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain.

author notes

Funding was provided by the UC Integrated Hardwood Range Management Program, the Rustici Chair in Rangeland Management at UC Berkeley, and the Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. We thank Adriana Sulak, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley, for sharing interview data.

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